This is why people need to be mentally ready for parenthood. Obviously it's a horrible crime but I can't help feeling for the mum...maybe if she just got some help at an earlier stage... she's still so young.

This is why people need to be mentally ready for parenthood. Obviously it's a horrible crime but I can't help feeling for the mum...maybe if she just got some help at an earlier stage... she's still so young.

I'm afraid going and having a smoke break then getting back to shaking her baby to death negates any sympathy I may have for a stressed parent.

This is why people need to be mentally ready for parenthood. Obviously it's a horrible crime but I can't help feeling for the mum...maybe if she just got some help at an earlier stage... she's still so young.

I'm afraid going and having a smoke break then getting back to shaking her baby to death negates any sympathy I may have for a stressed parent.

I was younger than that when my first baby was born, and I certainly remember being exhausted, weepy, overwhelmed, and frustrated, especially when he was cranky for reasons I couldn't figure out (oh, babies: they're so funny that way). I was fortunate in having a good support system, and anyway, I've always been more temperamentally apt to throw myself out the window, rather than the screaming infant. Sometimes the best thing to do is just put the baby down in a safe place - as long as s/he's dry, fed, and not in actual pain, a little crying won't do any real harm - and step outside onto the porch for a minute, make a cup of tea, call a friend, etc. Just step away from the baby. If this woman had lashed out in a moment of complete frustration, then come to her senses, realized what she'd done, and called 911, it would be one thing. I think we can all imagine how someone might have a momentary *snap* in which they lose the ability to consider the consequences of their actions, but the fact that she took time to "compose herself" before shaking the baby a second time makes it look like she did know what she was doing. It's a horrible, horrible story all the way around, and there's really no way to make it anything else. I suppose the "best" outcome that can be hoped for is that she will appreciate the depth of what she's done, and feel genuine remorse and compunction; I'd think that would be punishment enough for anyone.

I think it's horrible, but the comments on that make me pretty pissed off at humanity as well (possibly equally to the article).

Yes, I've been thinking about this the past couple days. I've been seeing horrible ignorant comments surrounding death a lot these past few weeks and I'm really losing faith in human beings too. The way I'm dealing with it is blaming it on the anonimity of the internet. Otherwise I would be forced move to a cabin in Lake Tahoe and spend all my days hiking and whittling from now on.